Only Kopitar, Doughty, Talbot and Lewis are the old guys. Kempe (26) Fiala (27) Dubois (25) Anderson (24) Clarke (20) Byfield (20) Moore (28) Roy (expiring but probably be extended is 28) Gavrikov (27). Danault is 30 and maybe his scoring falls off in a year or two but along as his defensive game keeps up he will be fine. Arvidsson (30) probably not extended. Kaliyev (22) still upside with him. Spence (22).

I think Vegas has a 10x better coach that was able to create a legit gameplan around EDM. Not to mention their bottom 6 was deeper than LA's. And the final piece of the puzzle was the fact that their defenseman are essentially redwood trees. Huge guys who were able to keep Draisaitl and McDavid to the perimeter.

One of LA's weaknesses has been the size on the back-end. Bringing in Clarke over Durzi should help that, as will a full year of Gavrikov. And finally, Edler was just so... old haha. Great player for his time, but trying to keep up with the speed of EDM was not good for him.

And I looked at the stats for Drew. They do point to him struggling more than I remember.

Vegas found guys that would lock up Drai and McDavid (minus G1) and made sure this matchups stayed (with the 11-7 that I suggest)... And as long as both those guys stay calm, it would have been a LA win IMO, no matter the bottom 6

Fair... I'm really a fan of Clarke and I think bog things are in store for him

Again, this isn't a "oh Doughty sucks", this was a "Doughty underperformed which is unusual for a guy like him"

No worries, took it exactly as you meant.

Just making sure... It's just that some people can't handle anyone talking an ounce of negativity about anyone on their team

With only 24 million to sign a pile of players.

That’s workable though.

I gotchu. You're not wrong. I try not to be one of those people.

Fact of the matter is Doughty is getting closer to his middle 30's. He's not likely a Norris candidate anymore, but he shouldn't need to be one for LA to be successful with the way they're constructed. He just needs to be a good #1D, which I think he still is.